This study examined the generality of a previous finding indicating that difficulty suppressing or inhibiting context-inappropriate interpretations is an important predictor of narrative discourse comprehension for adults with right brain damage RBD) (C. A. Tompkins, A. Baumgaertner, M. T. Lehman, & W. Fassbinder, 2000). Forty adults with RBD and 39 without brain damage listened to two-sentence stimuli and judged whether a probe word fit with the overall stimulus meaning. An ambiguous initial sentence elicited both dominant and less preferred inferences, and the second sentence resolved the ambiguity toward the initially less-likely interpretation. Probes represented the dominant inference for the first sentence and were presented at two poststimulus intervals.

Probe judgment response times indicated that neither group suppressed the eventually inappropriate inferences in the time intervals studied. However, multiple regression analysis demonstrated that for individual participants with RBD, the extent of suppression from one interval to the next was a significant predictor of performance on a specialized measure of inference comprehension. The discussion evaluates these findings and identifies directions for future research.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by Grant DC01820 from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. We are grateful to Tepanta Fossett and Janice Vance for their assistance with various portions of this project. We remain indebted to our patients for their interest and participation, and to HEALTHSOUTH Harmarville Rehabilitation Hospital, HEALTHSOUTH Greater Pittsburgh Rehabilitation Hospital, the Mercy Hospital of Pittsburgh, and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for assisting with participant referrals.

Subscribe to view more

For full access to this article, log in to an existing user account, purchase an annual subscription, or purchase a short-term subscription.